Curl of Fire
by prouvaires
Summary: -he looks at the glitter on her cheeks and the wild red tangle of her hair and decides that people don't need any more reason to look.- LilyTeddy


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter, I just screw with the characters.

**Rating: **T

**Words: **1,158

**Pairing: **TeddyLily

--

"I love you," she giggles drunkenly against his neck, and he rolls his eyes as he continues his measured pacing up the stairs, his arms carrying her carefully.

"Sober up, Lils," he warns her as he pushes her door open. "You'll wake your parents."

"Screw them!" she announces loudly as he dumps her onto her feet, and he shuts the door and casts a hurried silencing spell on the room. "They think I'm such a _baby_," she confides, leaning right into his personal space as the alcohol messes with her balance. "They don't know I'm all grown-up!"

She slurs her words and he sighs and shoves a glass of water into her hands, sitting her down on the side of her bed and standing over her until she's mutinously forced the whole glass down.

"You're such a killjoy," she tells him crossly, stumbling slightly as she stands. "Why couldn't you have just left me at the party?"

"Because a guy had his hand halfway up your shirt while you were screaming at him to leave you alone."

She pauses at this. "Oh."

"Oh indeed. Get into your pyjamas."

She pouts and toys with the hem of her silver dress. "Don't wanna."

He crosses the room quickly and unzips it, yanking it over her head in one swift movement.

"Nicely done," she compliments, wafting firewhiskey-scented breath over his face as she sways a little. "I suppose you've had lots of practise."

He doesn't even dignify this with a response, just points at the pyjamas flung over the back of her desk-chair.

"Shan't!" she declares, suddenly giggling like a five-year-old.

"Lily," he says threateningly, "don't make me take your underwear off too."

"Is that a promise?" she flirts, the act ruined by the wobbling in her knees as the alcohol takes further control. "'Cause so many girls would kill to hear you say that. Darling Teddy," she continues blithely, sinking down onto her bed and missing the roll of the eyes he gives her, "from what I hear from Uncle Charlie, you really are a total man-whore."

"Get into your pyjamas," he orders one more time.

"No," she giggles, rolling over on the bed and then gasping in shock as he hauls her to her feet, studying her back intently.

"What?" she slurs, craning her head to try and see over her shoulder. And then, in a small voice: "oh. The glamour wore off."

He just stands and stares, speechless. The green and silver dragon inked into her back blows him a jet of flame and wriggles in place, folding and unfolding a wing.

"You got a tattoo?" he asks hoarsely, blinking as the dragon winks at him.

"Yeah," she replies, somewhat redundantly, finally moving behind her wardrobe door and slipping out of her bra and into her pyjamas. "I usually cover it up though. I figured you guys would all go apeshit."

"Duh," he tells her. "That thing is _huge_."

"It's a part of who I am," she insists, sounding surprisingly sober. "I won't get rid of it."

The jet of fire the dragon blows curls up her neck and he sighs. "Does it always move?"

"No," she says, making a poorly timed and aimed grab for his wand. He relinquishes it to her reluctantly, and she points it at her back and mutters a spell he doesn't hear. The dragon freezes in place, its head resting on her left shoulder blade and its tail curling over the small of her back. "I only let him move at parties and stuff. To make people look."

He studies the glitter on her cheeks and her grey eyeshadow and her long, wild red hair and decides that people don't need the dragon tattoo to make them look.

"Come on," he tells her, taking her by the elbow and guiding her down the hallway on silent feet. "Wash your face and clean your teeth. I'll wait out here."

"I'm not five," she snaps as she enters the bathroom and shuts the door in his face.

"Then start acting more like a seventeen-year-old and less like a child!" he retorts through the wooden door. He can almost hear the swish of her arm as she flicks him off behind the door, because to him she's so predictable he knows almost exactly how she'll react to anything.

When she finally exits the bathroom he's half-asleep against the wall.

"If I apologise will you stay with me?" she asks, apparently a lot more sober and contrite than ten minutes previously. "I don't want to sleep alone tonight."

He nods and she laces her fingers into his, letting her head fall easily onto his shoulder.

"I'm sorry I behaved like a child," she says as they move down the hallway. He chuckles and places a kiss to the top of her head.

"I forgive you."

"Good," she tells him as they slip inside her room, "because the nightmares are worse than ever."

Since she was fourteen she's been getting nightmares sporadically about a wild, dark-haired woman who screams with laughter before sending killing curses in every direction, and the dream-Lily dodges them in panic while the real-Lily wakes herself screaming in terror. She hasn't told her parents because they'll freak out, convinced she's inherited some strange sort of dark magic connection from Harry.

She told Teddy straight away, because she knew he'd understand. So whenever she gets her nightmares she crawls into bed with him and falls asleep nestled against his broad chest with his arms around her and the wild woman leaves her dreams in peace.

"I think you should tell Harry," he says seriously. She just laughs, vestiges of the alcohol lingering, and slips into bed.

"Hurry up, dumbass. You know I can't sleep without my teddy bear."

He chuckles as he clambers in next to her, pulling the covers over both of them.

"I thought I'd seen the last of that joke."

"You're never too old for a teddy," she informs him through a yawn, and he slides his arm to pillow her head as she snuggles down happily, yawning again.

"G'night Ted. I love you."

"I love you too. Even when you keep me awake 'til crazy hours when you're blind-drunk."

She's already got her eyes shut, but she cracks one open and turns her head to glare at him, a slit of emerald shooting daggers.

"Let's not get into the amount of times you've kept me awake bringing some girl in."

He just plants a kiss on her cheek and tucks her further into him.

"'Night, Lils."

She mumbles sleepily and then shuts her eyes again. He puts his face against her wild hair and breathes in her honey-and-sunshine scent and then closes his own eyes, letting sleep overcome him slowly, her gentle breathing a lullaby to the wolf that prowls on silent paws through his veins.

--

**A/N: **I feel I should point out that my own personal idea of Teddy is somewhat skewed by the fact that I know a French guy with the same name rather well, and tend to base this Teddy off him. But, really, whatever he looks like, which of us wouldn't want cuddly Teddy Lupin keeping us warm at night?

Please don't favourite without leaving a review or I'll set my trained werewolf on you.


End file.
